


Keep this love in a photograph

by itsdeianeira



Series: Our Own Soundtrack [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Best Man Stiles, Camping, Fluff, Future Fic, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mates, Memories, POV Derek, POV Multiple, POV Scott, Photographs, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Reunited and It Feels So Good, SO MUCH FLUFF, Scott is a Good Friend, Scott's Wedding, Song Lyrics, did i say fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 01:25:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5072611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsdeianeira/pseuds/itsdeianeira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b> >>Scotty 23:08  </b><br/>Hey buddy, you dropped your wallet on your way out. Want me to bring it to your room?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep this love in a photograph

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read [In this light](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4243659) you'll hardly catch most of the events. I suggest you to read the series in its chronological order. 
> 
> Unbetad as always, sorry! Let me know if there's any mistake I can correct.  
> 

**< < **Hey buddy, you dropped your wallet on your way out. Want me to bring it to your room? **[Sent 23:08]**

 

Scott had his eyes fixed on the screen of his phone. Half an hour and still no answer from Stiles. Shit. He was starting to freak out. What if a strange Japanese supernatural creature had caught him, or attacked him, or... Wait, the Nogitsune was a Japanese demon, right?

_Shit._

Shitshitshitshit. He had known going to Japan to get married would have been too much of a strain for anyone! Why did he listened to Noshiko? Ken was right, they should have left for Japan _after_ the wedding, for the honeymoon maybe. Now he was on the verge of having a panic attack over his missing friend. He needed to find him. Like, right now.

“What you're thinking about, man?” Liam asked, shaking him from his thoughts.

“Nothing. Just wondering why Stiles haven't answered yet.”

“Don't worry. I bet he collapsed on his bed as soon as he got into the room and fell asleep still dressed up as he was.” He snickered.

Scott snorted. “Yeah, you're probably right. I'm overthinking this.”

“Definitely.” Liam patted his shoulder.

 _But still._ Scott couldn't stop fidgeting, fiddling with his best friend leather wallet, opening and closing the two folds slapping together repeatedly.

Stiles had been using the same wallet for ages, his father's legacy, handed down to him right before college. The light brown hide was worn and consumed on the edges, the sandy seam frayed in more than one point, threads sticking out everywhere. On the inside there wasn't much to keep it full apart from a credit card, a library card and the driving license. However, he knew the most valuable things in there for Stiles were actually tucked under the see-through pocket.

There for the world to see, under the translucent cover, a thinner inkjet piece of paper showed two round faces both split in a cunning, toothy smile. Scott had almost forgotten Stiles used to have long straight hair framing the gentle features of his pouty face when they were seven. His friend's bangs were so long that almost blinded him, while he himself was always forced by Melissa to cut his own strands very short.

Scott smiled naturally, his facial muscles moving on their own accord. To think that eight grades after, once in high school, they had looked the exact opposite – buzz cut for Stiles and long mopey hair for himself – was actually kind of funny. All those years, all the things they've been through together, all those memories conquered and then put away to safekeeping...

Scott inhaled to take in the bittersweet sensation curling in his chest, spiraling down is gut, fading out as his lungs emptied and his diaphragm relaxed. But only to fade in again an instant later.

He delicately padded the photograph out of its pocket with his thumb, so as to better peer into his own past, but he ended up sliding out other small cards and papers Stiles had hidden behind it. They slipped out of place all together, silently floating and landing on the table, scattered all around the surface.

“What's that?” Jackson pointed a folded coated sheet with a small jerk of his chin. Scott watched Liam picking something up and sprung forward on the table. “Don't open it. It's not mine.” He tried to reach out and take it back, suddenly worried about someone seeing what Stiles had probably meant to keep secret.

“Oh, come on!” Jackson barked out, beating him to the punch and tearing it off Liam's hands. But before Jackson could have even blinked, Danny had already stolen the incriminated paper from him.

It never chased to amaze Scott the way Jackson would always instantly respond to Danny's glower. Not without a roll of eyes, obviously – it was Jackson Whittermore, after all – but instantly nonetheless.

When finally all the papers came back to Scott, he realized he himself didn't know what each one of those pictures could have been portraying. He knew one of them was the photo of a five year old Stiles and a beautiful young Claudia scooping him up and smiling at him with joy and pride in her eyes. A photo taken the day she had first started teaching Stiles how to swim at the local pool, during an hot, insufferable summer. A photo Stiles cherished as the most important and private moment of his life.

But the others, he had no idea.

He took them and was tucking them back where they belonged, hitching to know, but yielding to his sense of respect, when he scooted something on the lower right edge of the one he still had in hand. Written black on white, a date was followed by a funny quote.

 

_July 2015. “Camping on private property is still camping.”_

 

* * *

**August 2016**

Packing for collage was a required step in a young adult's life. It was the first big step to start anew, to go find your soul and some peace of mind. The perfect way to erase each trace of a past you want to left behind, out of your vision, to forget any hint of negative attitude which could keep you from accomplishing your dreams. Especially with all the horror the past few years had brought into their formerly quiet town.

They were putting their effects together, rummaging through the stacks of objects that scattered all around Scott's room along the years, hidden and forgotten pieces of their own puzzles they might have wanted to keep and bring with themselves, or possibly trash without second guessing.

When the junior year book came in Scott's hand, a paper slipped out leafing slowly to land soundlessly on the carpet, reflecting the few rays of sunshine hitting its surface. He knelt down to ease his box on the floor and pick up the picture with free hands.

A photograph framing a moment of pure joy during the rare period of calm, last summer before senior year, when the pack had spent some quality time bonding through an impromptu camp in the preserve. Lydia had her head resting upon Scott's shoulder, lost in laughter, while Scott was hiding his own smile into her mass of strawberry blonde hair, refraining from letting a very similar guffaw breaking through the fresh air of the sunset. Derek's smug face was low lit by a still growing bonfire, a mouthful of s'mores outrageously filling his cheeks while he faced Stiles' offended expression. The boy has his best dead glare fixed on the wolf who had just snatched his dinner made of delicious junk food.

“ _I don't even know what's so exciting about camping in my backyard.”_

“ _It's not your backyard, grumpypants! It's the preserve, which – okay, half of it might happen to belong to your family. But so what? It actually makes it even cooler cause we have access to a part of it other people are not allowed in, so we can freakin' camp undisturbed!”_

“ _You have to admit he has a point.” Liam had snapped._

_Lydia had glanced Derek knowingly from her blanket-nestle next to Scott, who was too lost in the depths of his phone's screen, waiting for a message from Kira, to keep track of their discussions._

_Derek had groaned not so pleased, sitting down on the fallen log, beside Stiles._

“ _Whaaa-”_

“ _What? It's my property, I have the right to do what I want.”_

“ _Oh, COME. ON.”_

“ _Nope. If I want to stay here and steal your s'mores just like you guys are stealing my land, I can.”_

“ _It's not stealing! It's borrowing.”_

“ _Then I'll borrow your dinner, here.” Stiles hadn't even seen it coming. Before he knew, his melting s'more was already gone, smashed between Derek's gnawing jaws._

_Malia had chosen that moment to surprise everyone with a flash from her camera, Scott remembered, immortalizing a fragment of normality nobody had thought would have had such value._

 

“Hey, man, look at this.” Scott said, standing up. Stiles, who was filling an other box by the bed, stepped closer to him a looked over his shoulder to what he had in his hands. Behind him, he scoffed letting out a humid hot puff on Scott's shoulder.

“That sneaky bastard,” Stiles muttered under his breath, but he was smiling.

“We had a good time that week.”

“Yeah,” he answered, still staring at the picture now in his own hands, visibly wandering along the lanes of memory.

“You know, it's hard not to miss him. Even with all the calls and the texts, the pack it's not the same without him.”

“He's an asshole. No doubt about that. But he was pack since day one, despite the threats of death and his unorthodox methods of training and his questionable social skills.”

Scott laughed. “He's got better, after, I guess.”

“Yeah, no, I don't know. I wouldn't be so sure,” he snorted. “At least I hope he didn't regress while away.”

“Guess we'll have to wait for him to come home to know.”

“Yeah...”

Derek had been gone a year, and all they had had were texts and emails and sporadic phone calls. And Scott knew that for Stiles the disappointment had been harsh. They've been through an unprecedented rough time that year, but Derek had never came back to Beacon Hills, not even when Breaden had. Scott had noticed the way Stiles' expression had shifted when she had told them he wasn't coming, “ _not this time, guys._ ” He had noticed the look of disillusionment, the betrayal on his face, the same he showed every time Derek's name was brought into the conversation.

At the prom, Stiles had suddenly disappeared while the other were having the time of their lives. Worried about his long absence, Scott had left Kira to dance with Malia while he went looking for him, and he had found him alone by the pool, sitting crossed-legs on podium #4, hunched over, fiddling with the hem of his pants. At the time, Stiles and Malia had already broke up and Scott knew about Stiles' profound emotional crisis. He said he couldn't feel anything for her anymore, that he didn't feel anything for anyone, he simply could not feel. Apathetic, that was his definition.

And still, Scott thought there was something strange, a constant glint of nostalgia in Stiles' eyes, like a small flame burning in his depths he seemed completely unaware of. His best friend was unconsciously missing something, Scott was sure, but he couldn't pinpoint exactly what.

Now, after a summer spent doing nothing but playing videogames and binging in junk food, the situation hadn't really improved. But in that moment, watching Stiles staring at that photo with his lips drawn in a small smile and his eyebrows relaxed, Scott thought he had an idea. However, he kept silent, resuming packing his things.

A couple of minutes later, with the corner of his eyes, he saw Stiles put the photograph down on one of his already closed boxes, waiting to decide about its destiny.

 

* * *

**> > Stiles **

      Still not in my room, I needed some air. Drop it to the reception, I'mma get it when I go back.  
**[23:56]**

**< <** DUDE! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? I was starting to freak out!  
**[23:57]**

 

**> > Stiles **

      With Derek. Don't worry, your best man is safe. Sorry!  
**[00:04]**

**< <** With Derek. Like, you two, alone?

      You'd better be. Safe, I mean.  
                                                                                         **[00:06]**

 

**> > Stiles **

      Yes, dumbass!

      I am, I swear. I'll tell you tomorrow.  
**[00:19]**

 

 **< <** I can't decide whether I'm looking forward to it or not. 

       Left your wallet at the reception. Night, man.  
**[00:23]**

 

**> > Stiles **

      I owe you one. G'night, buddy ♥  
                                                                                        **[00:24]**

 

* * *

 

He was his.

Derek couldn't still wrap his mind around the fact. Stiles was _his_ , here walking beside him, smiling in contentment and smelling like happiness. They'd been talking for hours sitting on the sand, catching up on everything important they'd been missing in each other's life during the last few years, and he was still trying to classify the odd sensation that had pervaded him while listening to Stiles rambling about his last adventures.

Looking closely, Derek had been able to easily notice the small changes in his persona. His voice was deeper, somehow rougher, he seemed bolder in his posture and in the way the eye contact between them never failed, his attention span seemed higher as he appeared focused and engaged in Derek's speaking. He could have never fathomed the old Stiles, the young boy always bursting with energy and incapable of focusing, enough to earn him the brand of disrespectful brat from various high school professors, being a lecturer at university. And still here he was, talking about what he appreciated the most in his students. All his stories about college, all those experiences Derek hadn't witnessed, had made a man out of the hyperactive boy he had once met in the woods, and the closer he listened to them the more Derek felt like he was getting to now a stranger, someone completely new to him.

But then he had looked down to find a pair of hands shaking, hitching to freely move in long and extensive gestures, his feet restlessly digging into the grains, and Derek had breathed out in relief. The same old Stiles was still there, behind the perfect facade of control whose cracks were on the verge of crumbling. Cunning, enthusiastic, positive, constantly fidgeting in anxiety. Derek had suddenly realized how words still rolled out of his lips a mile a minute and his eyes still sparkled with the characteristic flame of life.

He had kissed him fiercely, then, cutting into his speech and leaving the sentence midair.

“Am I getting boring?” Stiles had asked, eyes shut. Only an hint of a breathless laugh leaving his mouth.

“Never.” Nothing of what Stiles said could have been boring to him. It was Derek's fault, after all. He had waited too much, he had longed too much, he had let Stiles have his life and now he wanted it all back to be part of it, to replace his loneliness with the sensation of fullness that comes with feeling loved.

Even now, stepping back into the lodge of the hotel, Stiles' hand clutched in his, fingers intertwined, Derek couldn't help fearing he'd wake up the following morning to cold sheets and a usual empty bed, and realize this had been all just a dream. A vivid, vibrant dream, but a dream nevertheless. He didn't want to go back to live through his memories of the boy he loved, he didn't want to go back to when the only thing to make him feel alive was the recorded sound of Stiles' laughter in his head.

Stiles slowed down until he stopped them both a few feet away from the reception counter. “I need to claim my wallet. Stay here, it won't take long.”

His smile was small and placid, meant to be reassuring, but it still managed to reach his eyes. He lifted their tangled hands to his face and softly brushed his lips through Derek's knuckles, leaving the man baffled. Then the smile became a smirk and his grasp on Derek loosened while his feet walked backward toward the receptionist.

A dream. Definitely a dream.

 

* * *

 

Nope. Definitely not a dream.

Because, no matter how vivid it can be, in a dream you can't feel so out of breath from just kissing someone, as your intake is regular in your sleep. You cannot feel so alive from the sensation of skin skimming under your touch while your hands run across someone's arms, neck, hips, abdomen, chest... You can't feel the connection between you and the other person, you can't feel the pounding of their heart against their sternum, you can't hear them panting directly into your ear...

No matter how vivid a dream might be, there was no way it could have been THIS vivid.

“Don't- ah - don't leave me bruised, please.”

“I could never hurt you, Stiles. I missed you so much it hurt, all those past year craving to feel something, to feel _you_. I could never lose you, not again. And I won't deceive you, because if I'll let you out of my life, I don't know what I'd do.”

The boy's hands stopped abruptly under Derek's shirt, halfway down his spine. His breath held in his lungs for what felt too long.

Shit.

Derek started to internally panic, afraid his declaration had been too honest and direct. Afraid it might have pushed Stiles away.

“Der, I was talking about the hickeys on my neck.” Stiles was stifling a laugh now, the bastard.

“Oh my god,” Derek groaned, head falling to lean fully on Stiles' shoulder. He was pretty relieved to be honest, but also slightly embarrassed for how quickly he had opened his heart.

“You know, the suit I have to wear tomorrow does not involve a turtleneck,” he added, still laughing. “I wouldn't want people glaring at me because of weird bruises under my collar. I mean, I know you're kinda possessive and all, but-”

“Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

Derek raised his head from where it was resting on the boy's shoulder and looked up, flicking his glance from Stiles' eyes to his lips repeatedly. He wanted to go back to kissing him. He wanted to feel Stiles under him, all of him, skin on skin, melting into each other making impossible for them to discern where one body ended and the other began.

“Shut up.” He ordered finally, once his eyes had met Stiles'.

“Yessir.” Stiles exhale. And as if Derek's command had ignited his flagging passion once again, he wrapped his arms around the older man's neck, letting Derek lift him up and hooking his legs behind his lover's firm ass. “Jeez, you'll be the death of me.” He panted out loud, shamelessly rolling his hips, rubbing himself on Derek so that he could feel his hard-on through the fabric of their pants.

Derek couldn't contain a moan. “Didn't we just say to keep quiet?” Sensing Stiles' smug on his skin.

“You know me, dear. I'm an orator, it's my profession. There's only one way you could shut-”

Derek didn't let him finish, claiming his mouth with a full, fervent kiss, as to comply to Stiles' suggestion. “I hate your ramblings.”

“Shut up, you love all of me.”

At that, Derek froze. His tongue stopping abruptly on Stiles' collarbone.

“I mean, not like, love me _love me_. Just, you know, you adore me. You... I... Shit, Derek, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make it awkward. I just, don't know, speak without thinking-”

“Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

“It's okay. It's just...” _True. Totally, completely, utterly true. I love you with all myself and I truly could not survive without you._ _My wolf is yearning to claim you._ _My heart might explode right now just from having you here in my arms, kissing you. This is perfect. You are perfect and I'm bounded to you for life, Stiles. I'm yours, without condition. Be mine, please._ “Too soon.”

Stiles gulped, nodding and looking down. “Yeah... Of course.” If the tone in his voice and the way his shoulders slumped in defeat weren't enough, his chemo signals were unmistakable, the smell of disappointment so strong in Derek's nostrils.

He wanted to reassure the boy, to swear on everything that he was that he had no reason to doubt, no reason to feel disappointed. He wanted to envelop him in his arms and never let him go, he wanted to took him into his own room and wrap them both into his sheets, aiming to stay in there for the rest of this trip.

But in that moment, as if on cue, the screen above the elevator they were standing beside lit up and dinged, notifying them the doors were about to slide open and let someone out of the lift.

“Shit,” Stiles hissed, jumping down as Derek let himself be shoved away. Not too much, tough. Just the right amount of space to make them settle into a more comfortable position to appear more like two lovebirds cooing, rather than like two rabbits groping each other.

A group of oriental girls, probably Kira's guest to the wedding, came out into the corridor laughing and joking in an indecipherable language. Derek didn't care, as he turned his back to them, coming back to feel Stiles hips under his palms and hugging him closer, drowning in his scent. Once they had passed, chirping and giggling about their display of love, Stiles huffed out a short laugh and his breath ghosted over Derek's neck, sending shivers across his spine.

Stiles' grin was pressed on his skin at the base of his throat when he said, “Maybe it wasn't a good idea starting this in the middle of the hallway, after all,” his voice muffled.

Derek scoffed in response. “At all.”

But Stiles would not stop. He continued to nuzzle and sniff into the hollow of Derek's neck, inebriating the older man with his soft touches.

And Derek was definitely good with that. I could have stayed like that forever, all night long. All tomorrow long. Before, during and after the wedding...

 _The wedding_.

Derek grunted. “Stiles.” He hissed.

But Stiles wasn't listening, focused solely on his task.

He tightened his grip on the boy's waist and shook him out of his lustful trans. “Stiles, stop.”

“What. But..." the look on the boy's face flickered from startled to a frown, finally opting for a pout. "Why?”

“The wedding.”

Stiles' groan came accompanied by a roll of eyes.

“It's late and we have to wake up early. You have to help Scott with all his ministrations and we should be fit and rested for the long day that's waiting for us.”

“I hate being a groomsman. Too many responsibilities, like not showing up with hickeys or sore or not yawing in the middle of my speech... I just want to be with you. Is it so much to ask for?”

Derek cupped Stiles' cheeks in both his hands and pressed a chaste kiss on his lips. “I want to be with you, too. So bad. But what's one more day after five years without one another?” He leaned forward to chase the boy's forehead with his, eyes closed.

“It would be hard to sleep, anyway. Knowing that you're two doors down and itching to be with me just like I am to be with you? It's nothing like the past five years.”

“Stiles?”

“Yeah.”

Derek canted his head to have better access to Stiles' lips with his owns, until they were brushing together. “See you tomorrow,” he said quietly.

When he opened his eyes and pulled away, Stiles was pouting again. Derek slid his thumb over Stiles' cheekbone, watching him in fondness before parting from him definitively.

Before his hand could entirely slip away from Stiles', however, the boy hooked his index to Derek's fingertip with a firm grip, resolved to make him stop.

“I could never lose you, either.”

The young man had breathed the sentence out like a whisper, as if only Derek was meant to make his words out even though they were alone in the aisle. Derek's heart clenched without a warning at the realization of what Stiles had just referred to, his chest aching in a pleasurable pain he would never get tired of, his wolf howling somewhere deep down into his core.

He was so, so in love with him.

He had to muster up every ounce of self-restrain he had left in his limbs not to leap forward again, take Stiles' face in his hands and kiss him stupid until tomorrow, right there in the corridor. In the end, he did nothing but nod. A limited movement to acknowledge Stiles' feeling, but preventing himself from doing a further move.

Eventually, he stepped back and started walking backwards to prolong the eye contact as much as possible. “Good night, Stiles.”

The younger man sighed. “Good night, Derek. See you tomorrow.”

Derek found himself at his door too soon, unlike Stiles, who hadn't moved an inch.

He bowed his head again in a gentle goodbye and turned around to face the wood and work the handle.

“Derek?”

“Yeah?”

He tilted his head sideways in order to have a better hearing of Stiles voice, but didn't turned around to face him.

“I'll be the one in gray suit and black tie.” The boy called out behind him.

Derek smiled to himself. “Yeah, me too.” He stated, before unlocking the door with the magnetic key and closing the hallway out his room.

* * *

 

Leaning back against the locked door of his room, Derek exhaled soundly for the first time that night. It had been an intense couple of hours and he was still overwhelmed by the unexpected turn the events had taken.

When he finally managed to wrap his mind around the fact it hadn't all been a vivid dream, he pulled away from the white-painted wood behind him and headed to the queen size bed waiting for him to snuggle in.

As he stepped forward, he felt a different consistency of the carpet under the sole of his shoe. He looked down to found he had walked over a white envelope with his name on it. _Somebody must have probably let it slide in under the door_ , he thought.

He crouched down to take it in his hands and open it.

Inside there was a letter with a photo attached. It was an analogical photo, printed and all, but it had wrinkles and stretches that joined in the center like an irregular cross, suggesting it had been folded in four for a long time. In the picture, Stiles was gaping at Derek munching on his stolen s'more. He huffed out a laugh remembering that evening in the Hale property into the preserve. It has been so long since then, so many things had change, and still there was something in the way they were looking at each other that seemed to give something out...

Derek shook his head, thinking he was making things up. He started reading the letter instead.

_"I found this in Stiles' wallet and I thought you should have it. We had found it in my room four years ago and I have the feeling he kept it in there ever since._

_These last few years Stiles had been ~~weird~~ distant, and not just physically. As we went to different colleges we always kept in touch, telling each other everything, and I saw him changing. I mean, to anybody else he was just the usual Stiles, rambling obnoxiously loud about nothing truly meaningful, nervously fiddling or chewing whatever would pass through his hands, gesturing widely and giggling at nothing. _

_But back home for the holidays I could see how those giggles and smiles couldn't reach his ears anymore, I could see how much tension ran through his muscles when he fidgeted, and I could notice all the small mental slips he made in his ramblings. At the beginning, I thought it was a late effect of the Nogitsune, or maybe it had something to do with the fact he wasn't having the time of his life at college as he had dreamed, due to his lack of interest in romantic relationships. But they were all just hypothesis, and as long as his life went on as normal I didn't really made a problem out of it._

_Seeing this again, I thought about the old Stiles again and I realized he had always been different when you weren't there. I don't think it was a conscious thing, since Stiles never realized he was missing something... until today, that is._

_What I want to say with this is... man, I trust you to make him happy. I know you'll be good for him, so bring his smile back for me too, please. You both deserve each other and you both deserve happiness._

_Love you,  
_ _Scott_

_PS: Mandatory bro threat: if you hurt him, my True Alpha code won't be the only thing I'm gonna break. If you know what I mean."_

 

* * *

 

 _So you can keep me_  
_Inside the pocket_  
_Of your ripped jeans_  
_Holdin' me closer_  
_'Til our eyes meet_  
_You won't ever be alone_  
_Wait for me to come home_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Tenerife Sea wasn't enough. My brain decided it was just the beginning and it started elaborating some sequels... I started this a couple of weeks after In This Light, but then life and a hideous writer's block happened, and I managed to finish this only today. I don't even know what I'm doing, tho.
> 
> As always, please let me know if there's anything to edit.
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Deianeira__) and [Tumblr](http://whisperingfae.tumblr.com/) if you want to say hi or talk about whatever ♥


End file.
